As I’ve mentioned in the past, most Android phones are more powerful than my first few computers. The next logical step is running those desktop operating systems on our smartphone hardware. In this case, Microsoft Windows 95.

File this under “Why? Because I can”. There’s really no utilitarian reason why one would want to do this, other than to say that they can.

To get started you’ll need to grab the qumu95eng.rar file, here. (You’ll also need a program on your desktop PC to un-rar this file, WinRar or 7-Zip will do the job.)

Next, extract the SDLapp.apk to the root of your sdcard.

Then extract the SDL folder (and its contents) to the root of your sdcard.

Once that’s done, on your Android find and open SDLapp.apk (I used AndExplorer, which is free from the Market). Once installed you can find the libSDL app in your app drawer. Tap it and Windows 95 will begin to boot.

There you go! Keep in mind that Windows 95 wasn’t “touch friendly” so you’ll have to tap and drag the mouse cursor around, and “clicks” are tricky because the pointer is so small.

Additionally, the screen resolution is set at 640×480 (which doesn’t fill the screen), you’re probably not going to be able to fire up Internet Explorer and surf the web, install printers, or install additional programs.

And remember, if you don’t properly shutdown, the next time you go to boot up Windows 95 you’ll be met with an old-school Scandisk, even on Android.